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Lower Waterton
'Lower Waterton '''is a village station on the Great Waterton branch line. It was evacuated and abandoned alongside the town of Great Waterton, but the Sodor Day restorations on the rediscovered town did not reach the village, and as such Lower Waterton remained in decrepit condition. The village's obscurity made it an ideal hideout for Glynn and PT Boomer. Glynn has a shrine to Diesel 10 in the sheds at the station, and Splatter and Dodge accidentally found their way to the village while looking for unspoiled buffers to bust. Description While Great Waterton was a thriving town at the heart of Sodor, Lower Waterton was a small hamlet which intended to home the lower-earning employees of the Water Works. Great Waterton's large area of shops made it very popular with visitors, and as a result workers struggled to get to work on a daily basis, with the town so full of visitors and the trams already overworked. Land previously considered uninhabitable was purchased and a simple arrangement of houses suitable for the workers was constructed; soon, the Water Works employees were rehoused, freeing up the issue of moving around the town during days of high visitor activity. While the trams continued to run Great Waterton primarily as 'special attractions', Lower Waterton would need a cheap and simple-to-run service simply for shuttling workers to and from the pumping houses. It can be assumed, based on an image shared by the Legend of the Hills Twitter, that the only engines available to spare from the North Western Railway were the Ffarquhar Coffee-Pots, as Glynn can be seen working the station in the image. For whatever reason that Great Waterton was abandoned, it is likely that Lower Waterton was abandoned as a result of this, and soon afterwards; if the Water Works were no longer in operation, its workers no longer needed to live so locally, and would more than happily move from the compact hamlet of Lower Waterton. However, given the condition that Lower Waterton was left in for so long, the circumstances for the departure of its inhabitants seem much more sudden, so there may be a more severe reason for the evacuation of Great Waterton and Lower Waterton. The village itself is built up above the station, in a grid formation of houses and small shops. In keeping with the size of the village, the station is also small, accessed by a stairway down from the village streets with a platform at either side and a footbridge connecting them. The station has a small shelter for the stationmaster to sell tickets and the passengers to keep out of the bad weather. Three tracks run through the station, and all three terminate in the engine sheds. A bridge runs over the three tracks beyond the station, leading past the village and towards Great Waterton, though in ''Legend of the Hills 2 ''there is no visible connection to the bridge from Lower Waterton. A signal box near the bridge is assumed to be where the unseen points are controlled. There is a football pitch behind the station, which is home to Lower Waterton FC. After Evacuation The village was seemingly evacuated on Sodor Day 1939, as the tattered banner commemorating this day still hangs from the footbridge while Glynn and PT reside here. A football match may have been in progress when the village was suddenly evacuated, as the football is still on the pitch. A sinkhole has opened near the sheds, and has long since been flooded by torrential rains and become a pond. Spare parts and components from Glynn's rebuilds and conversion are strewn around the station area. The rails for the redundant berths of the shed have been torn up and the end of the tracks have been blocked by piles of mud; although there are numerous houses in the village likely offering better accommodation, PT has chosen to use this empty space as his home, bringing a bed, dining table and even a bathtub into the shed. The shed suddenly gains a barber shop workstation with full length mirror while PT finishes Glynn's conversion to diesel; the workstation and barber's pole mounted outside soon disappear and are never acknowledged. They were probably stolen from a barber shop in the village. Trivia * Lower Waterton's location was chosen as it seemed to best fit the story in terms of geography; with the location came the name, and 'Lower' was deliberately used to suggest the village was a darker and more depressing place than the restored and vibrant Great Waterton. * In ''Legend of the Hills 2, a shop can be seen in the village bearing the name 'Lush'. This is a reference to the chain of shops which produces popular handmade cosmetics. Category:Locations